Lavarnway continues his torrid hitting going 4 for 4 with another home run last night, He's now batting .378 with a 1.155 OPS and now has 23 home runs between Portland and Pawtucket. He seems to be forcing a management decision.

No question he is hitting his way into the Majors. The questions is, as what?

To me it's way too early to dump Varitek for a very inexperienced catcher with real weaknesses behind the plate. DH? Not likely. Outfield? Maybe, but the Sox haven't tried him out there as far as I know.

My prediction? He stays put and learns his trade, at least until September, and moves up earlier only if Tek or Salty gets hurt.

He should be in Boston! You have to find out if he can hit up here and if he can what a boost it would be. I like Salty but his hitting is going the wrong way. Plus I dont care how bad Lavanway is behind the plate he cant be worse than Salty

Cool those jets! Lavarnway doesn't yet have 10 home runs at Pawtucket. Yeah, he looks great so far, but he was only just promoted from AA. Too soon to suggest that he needs to be in the majors. I do expect he will get a call in September, and am looking forward to it. Maybe earlier, if injury strikes.Posted by thirtysomething

What is so magical about 10 homers, the man has hit at every level starting with high school. NCAA hitting leader and led every pro team he has played for. If Reddick can come up after hitting 233 or so what do you tell Lavarnway? I tell him to please come to Boston.

"Plus I dont care how bad Lavanway is behind the plate he cant be worse than Salty"

Some of these comments crack me up. He can be much much worse than Salty and if you don't care how bad your catcher is behind the plate I'm going to have to assume that you know very little about baseball.

Catching defensive is notoriously hard to quantity, but Lavarnway is not letting balls by him, he's not committing errors, and he's throwing out runners at around 30%. What's the knock on him defensively?

Lavarnway is playing well. He has increased his value, he has shown that he may be a future MLB player. But let's relax here a moment people, he just started the year in AAA, and it was only last year he started the year in single-A. There is NO NEED to rush this kid to the majors...because how often do we someone's development crushed by rushing them to the Majors???

It's not as if Catching is a pressing need for us at the moment as well. In the American league, there are only 3 catchers with a higher OPS than Salty....and one of them is on this team. Also Softy the ideal of getting rid of Varitek doesn't make sense...do you want the young hitting prospect in Lavarnway to come up and become a back-up catcher and not play everyday???

Also It's wrong to use Reddick as the standard to what a AAA player can do when called up. As we've seen over the years, many many many different things can happen when a player is called up to that next level and in no way shape or form should Reddick's success be a precursor to Lavarnway.

I like Lavarnway a lot, I really do.....but he doesn't pitch, he doesn't play SS and he doesn't play right field.....so why rush this kid to the majors?????

Leave him in Pawtucket for the remander of the year, then bring him up in Sept., let he sit on the bench, get a occassional at bat, catch a inning here and their, and in general see what it takes to be a ML player, Also learn from Varitek as Tek seems to be willingly to help young catchers.No need to rush him t Boston after just a month or two of success at the AAA LEVEL.Next spring he will get every opportinuty to prove himself.Beside I believe the Sox are in 1st place and catching does not appear to be a problem at the present time. We have other pressing needs.GIVE Lavarnway a brake and leave him where he is now, and in time if he is as good as we want to believe, then he will get his chance. After all cream always rises to the top.

Boomerangs, Lavarnway had 26 (!) passed balls in Greenville, 11 passed balls last year, just 5 so far this year. That's in just 41 games caught, however, so it remains a weakness. Similar PB rate and CS% to Exposito.

Lavarnway continues his torrid hitting going 4 for 4 with another home run last night, He's now batting .378 with a 1.155 OPS and now has 23 home runs between Portland and Pawtucket. He seems to be forcing a management decision.Posted by wlbpatriotsfan

I think "forcing a managment decision" might be a tad too strong....the choices, in the summer of 2011 seem to me to be: